The University of Cincinnati’s official twitter account (@uofcincy) posted a tweet claiming that “anger” is “linked to conservative economic views.”
Study: Anger linked to conservative economic views. https://t.co/yktGUaBx5S pic.twitter.com/sc7W6HAhgv
— U of Cincinnati (@uofcincy) September 2, 2017
The included link leads to a blog post from Matt Koesters, a Public Information Officer at University of Cincinnati, which explains a recent study done by one University of Cincinnati professor, Anthony Salerno.
The University of Cincinnati attempts to draw connections between the amount of anger an individual exhibits, and their political preferences.
“The motorist tailgating you on the highway might be doing more than just getting you upset — they could also be influencing your political views,” Koester wrote.
Salerno, an assistant professor of marketing, and a second professor from University of Manitoba, came to this bizarre conclusion upon “multiple studies that included more than 1,000 participants.”
However, Salerno’s explanation of the study’s findings show the use of “conservative” is painting with an extremely broad brush.
“When you make people angry, you also make them more competitive,” Salerno explains. “If you think about competition, it’s about trying to win out over someone else, and it’s usually over some type of valuable or desirable resource. By making people more competitive, we think that people become more focused on acquiring resources.”
The university twitter account rarely tweets out studies published by their professors, and instead often posts standard promotional and recruitment materials.
Brad Johnson, a recent alumni of the University of Cincinnati, wrote about his disdain for the tweet in an article for the Cincinnati Republic, of which he is Editor in Chief.
“But perhaps they are right, as a current angry alumnus, I plan on being rather ‘conservative’ with any future donations to the University,” he quipped.
